Offline with Jon Favreau - Lilly Singh on YouTube to Late Night

Episode Date: March 27, 2022

This week, Jon is joined by YouTube sensation and former late night host Lilly Singh. Discussing her new book “Be a Triangle,” Jon asks Lilly how she recently got her life “into shape,” what being the first on late night meant to her, why she decided to delete social media off of her phone, and how she learned to be alone with her thoughts.“Be a Triangle” goes on sale April 5th. Find it wherever your buy books.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

So during the pandemic, I did go through a period where for about six months, I deleted social media. Right now, I do have Instagram on my phone. I did reinstall it because I felt like I was at a good headspace. Twitter will never be back on my phone. Good. That's the worst one. Twitter is the devil. But during the pandemic, yes, I did delete social media.

And it was tough because I actually had like phantom phone. I would try to keep opening social media on my phone. I was like, it's not there. It's not there. And then I would try to keep opening social media on my phone i was like it's not there it's not there and then i would try to find a replacement app like for like a couple weeks i was like okay i'm just gonna scroll the weather app the weather is gonna tell me something sunshine we've got rain what we got here the same thing i'm john favreau welcome to offline hey everyone my guest today is lily singh former host of NBC's A Little Late with Lilly Singh, one of the biggest YouTube stars in the world, and most importantly for the first woman to host a late night show in 30 years,

the first South Asian person, the first openly queer person, and the first host to make the jump from YouTube to late night. But because of YouTube, she was already famous at that point. In 2010, when she was finishing school in Canada, Lily posted her first video. It didn't go viral, but she kept at it, posting really funny sketches where she'd play four or five different characters. By 2013, she had racked up a million subscribers.

Today, she has nearly 15 million subscribers and over 3 billion video views. She's also an actor, a singer, a performer, the head of her own production company, and a New York Times bestselling author. Lily's new book, Be a Triangle, which is coming out in early April, is what I most wanted to talk to her about. Because it's about how none of the incredible accomplishments I just mentioned made her truly happy. She writes openly and honestly about the mental health challenges that come with living a very public, very online life.

How those challenges became worse during the pandemic, and how she ultimately learned to build a strong foundation, like the foundation of a triangle, that has given her a greater sense of peace, gratitude, and fulfillment. I got a chance to read an early copy of the book, and it made me realize just how perfect Lily would be for an offline conversation. So I reached out. We talked about her early days on YouTube, making the jump to late night, and the burden of being the first for so many. But we also got into what she wrote in Be A Triangle, how she overcomes distractions, what she makes of the facade of Instagram, and why, despite being someone who's made a career online, she's decided to delete social

media off of her phone. I learned a lot from her, and I hope you will too. As always, if you have questions, comments, or complaints about the show, feel free to email us at offline at cricket.com. Here's Lilly Singh. Lilly Singh, welcome to Offline. Thanks for having me. I'm so hyped to be here. We're happy to have you. You're a perfect guest for this show because you're one of the biggest YouTube stars in the world who has also recently deleted all social media apps from your phone. So I love that contrast. I want to get into all of that. I want to get into the wonderful book you've written that's coming out in a few weeks. But I'd love to start with what first led you to start making YouTube videos,

I believe, while you were still in college? Yeah, well, that's a great question, John. Let me break it down from the beginning. So it was 2010. I was actually in university in Toronto. I make the distinction not because I'm trying to be douchey and be like, it's actually university. Canadians actually have a difference between college and university Right, right, right So if I don't correct you, all the Canadians will come for me But I was in university and, you know, up until this point in my life I was doing all the things I thought I should do You know, my parents wanted me to get the degree They really believe in the degree

They believe in the linear line of going to university Getting the degree, getting the job, getting married, having the kid That's what everyone else in my family has done And I have an older sister who is six years older than me, who I just essentially followed in all of her footsteps. She went to a certain university, I went there. She pursued psychology, I pursued psychology. So not necessarily ever following my passions, but really just being like, I guess this is what I'm supposed to do. And then that kind of caught up with me. You know, my last year of university, I got into this really dark place where I didn't feel like myself. I wasn't passionate about anything I was doing.

And it was at that time that a friend was like, have you heard of this website called YouTube? And I vividly remember my response was, sounds stupid. Sounds like not cool at all. And then I eventually checked it out and I saw all these people just making videos in their houses, talking to camera, doing whatever they wanted to do. And I was so intrigued by that. And I decided to try it out. And more than anything, it allowed me to do something for me. And it allowed me to be creative.

And I started to build this community that was really awesome. And so it helped me get out of this funk I was in. Your parents found out about your channel from friends after one of your videos went viral. Why hadn't you told them? And what was their reaction when they found out than anything it was that I didn't take it seriously I mean at that time and especially living in Toronto there were no YouTube superstars that I could look at and be like look what they're doing they've made a career out of this so I thought this is just a thing I'm doing it's not going to turn into anything so why do I need to tell my parents about this this hobby um and then when they started to get calls being like is your is your daughter making videos they were just confused like why are you wasting your time doing this stuff and it wasn't until I I walked the room. I remember it was when I was

writing my essay to get into grad school. And I just kind of had a mental breakdown. And I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I cannot fathom doing this for more years. I walked into their room. I took a deep breath and I said, I am not going to do this. I am actually going to post videos on YouTube. And my Indian parents were like, say what now? And they weren't mad. They didn't say no. They said the best thing they could have said, which was, we don't understand this. But if you need to do this, you have a year to do this and try to figure this out.

And so that set me off on a ticking time bomb of like, I need to figure this out. What a wonderful reaction. I had something similar. I joined a political campaign after college and my parents were like, what happened to law school? And then I was like making no money on the political campaign and then we lost. And then I wanted to continue in politics. And they're like, still no law school. And I'm like, I don't think I'm ever going to law school. I just have to tell you, I'm going to do this political thing and hopefully it'll work out someday and they were supportive yeah my and your parents are in the same boat I really do believe till this day in my dad's mind there's some part of him that believes I will still go to law school like truly I still think there's days where he's like you could still go that route the LSAT book is right here yeah yeah I

could be at the Oscars living living a lot of people like well law school was still what um what was it like uh to first feel that sort of sense of affirmation as you started seeing the growth of views and subscribers on your channel i think the best example for this because you know i'm not a product of a viral video i never had one video that was like oh now you know overnight it blew up and now i'm a sensation every one of my videos slowly counted towards getting subscribers and slowly you know got my name out there the moment where i truly believed that oh this could really be something was actually the first time i had the opportunity to perform in india because my parents are from punjab which is northern india and i

visited many times there just to visit family but i was in Bombay for the first time for work. So this was the first time that I was literally across the world and I was standing side stage, ready to get on stage. And I heard the audience chanting my name and they were wearing my merch and they knew my catchphrases. And it was like seeing the internet work in real life, because when you're on the computer, you see the numbers, you see the comments, but it doesn't hit the same as when you're like, wow, I'm across the world. And these people know me. And you know, there was a Bollywood superstar that like kind of co-signed me on stage. And I remember walking off stage. I wasn't excited. I wasn't even happy. I was nauseous. I vividly remember being like, I am going to

throw up because I cannot comprehend this feeling. And so I was nauseated, but then that led to excitement. But it was really overwhelming. It was, especially my parents' birthplace, to go there and have people be so supportive of me was just really special. What an incredible moment. And now, when did you first realize as you were making these videos that like, oh, I actually could make a career out of this. This is more than just fun. Yeah. You know, so like I had said in Toronto, there wasn't a huge hub of creators. Most of them were in LA or in the States, but there was a small group of Canadian creators that I got to know. They were all dudes. And I remember once

one of them, his name was Fluffy Talks. He was like an OG creator out of Canada. He had emailed me being like, Hey, I'm doing a get, which is the first ever creator meetup in Canada. He was like, I'm inviting some YouTubers over to my house. Do you want to come? And I was like, Hmm, this could be really great or really sketchy. I'm going to have to take my chances here. And I went and it was my first experience meeting other creators. And I remember him looking at me and saying, you know, I bought my house because of YouTube. And I was like, you bought your house because of you. I was still waiting for the first a hundred dollar check to get cashed out to me for MadSense. But I was like, you bought a house. And it was the first time I met someone where I was like, oh my God, holy crap, this could actually be something. And that was back

then when that wasn't common, right? Not at all. No, not at all. Like I said, so back in the day, you had to make at least a hundred dollars for YouTube to be able to pay you out. Like the minimum check was a hundred dollars. It took me so long to get that first check. And so to hear someone say they bought a house, that just blew my mind. Do you feel like the platform in general has opened up opportunities for creators with diverse backgrounds and styles that you might not have had if you pursued the traditional path of an aspiring comic or an actor? One million percent, yes. I completely know. Just to be really blunt, if YouTube didn't exist, I probably would not have the career I have because I, growing up in Toronto, being an Indian girl, like would never get my parents to agree to let me just cold move to L.A.

They would never agree to let me pursue acting. They would never let me get a casting agent. I wouldn't even know how to get a casting agent. You know, I knew no one else that was doing anything like this. And so the lack of gatekeepers and the abundance of opportunity that you two presented really led me to where I am today. And I know this because as I've transitioned more into traditional Hollywood, I see those gatekeepers and I meet those gatekeepers and I look at them and I say, ha, I worked around you. But had you been there in 2010, I would not be sitting across from

you right now. What do people who aren't creators not appreciate or understand about what it's like to do this job? I think very often digital creators don't get the credit of being entrepreneurs. And that is what we are. I inevitably have a business. I didn't pursue this thinking I would have a business. I thought I could just be creative and just make cool videos, but inevitably it turned into a business. I had to hire people. I had to find management. I had to learn policy and laws and rules. And there's so much to this. So we really are business owners. And I'll even take that a step further to say that we are some of the most creative and cutting edge business owners because we're working in an arena that is so new.

You know, we don't have people to look back too often to say, what did they do? And how did they work this out? We're making up the rules as we go along. And so it is a fast paced business. There is no HR also. There's no one telling us to do this and do that, and you can only work this amount of hours. So the psychology and the business side of it

are things we're figuring out, and so I think we deserve a lot of credit. There just must be so much pressure, I imagine, when you are getting that many views and that many subscribers to keep producing more and more content every single day or else maybe you know the algorithm will start sending people somewhere else do you feel that pressure all the time at this exact moment no but having said that for the past nine ten years yes every

moment of every day i felt pressure um I, you know, the reality is, is when your job is to post content and the only measure of success you have is numbers and that's how you get paid. You know, there's no guarantees other than people viewing your content. You do feel compelled to constantly just be a machine that's pumping out content and every experience you have in life, your brain starts tricking you into thinking it needs to be content. Oh, I have a relationship content. I'm fighting with my significant other, content. Like, oh, I'm at a concert that is a once in a lifetime experience. Let me view it through my phone because content. And that really messes with how you start to live your life because you stop

living for yourself and you start living to just serve this algorithm. And so that's a really, really tough and unhealthy place to be. I imagine. So after these early years, you go on to achieve remarkable success in a short period of time, not only as a creator, but as a live performer, an actor, a singer, New York Times bestselling author, you start your own production company. And then NBC reaches out and says they need a new late night host. What was your initial reaction? What was your decision making process like thinking about taking the job? And then what anxieties did you have sort of going into it? John, I'm gonna be real with you here. So when I got that, when I got that call from NBC, I initially was leaning towards saying no. I was really skeptical about it because

I personally did not grow up watching late night. I did not grow up in a house where my parents watched late night. I don't think it was something they could ever relate to. And so I didn't have the dream of being like, I want to be behind the desk and I want to be a late night host. I knew I wanted to be in entertainment, but for me, that was more acting and producing and writing. It was never to host. So initially I was leaning towards no. However, the reason I said yes was because I was made familiar with the historicness of this moment. My team had explained to me that, hey, late night is like a staple in entertainment and there has not been a female host in over 30 years and you'd be the first South Asian host and you could really help pave a path here. That was really important to me. And so I said yes, because I wanted to be involved in that

historic moment. I wanted to be part of that movement. What I was naive about, if I'm being really honest in retrospect, what I was naive about is without that true passion and just wanting to be part of the history of it, that is not enough to drive someone to put in the amount of labor that is required of late night television. And I felt that in both seasons of the show. How much were all those historic firsts weighing on your mind as you started producing the show and doing the show? Well, I learned very quickly that the media, they're very savvy with headlines and they will find any way to make something historic. So yes, I assumed that like, that's going to be the first South Asian woman. I assumed it was going to be something about, you know, first openly queer, perhaps, I don't know. But then there was like just headlines left, right, left. First Canadian, this from this. First dog owning mom, this, this. I was like, wow, this is, you're really coming out of the, for longest hair, hair late night host like it was just all of the firsts that they could have come up with so yes it was exciting of course it feels good to see your name and know you're making history but then the amount

of pressure was just something that crushed me like i well someone literally said this to me man we're indians are so happy and proud of you but there's a there's a billion people counting on you that must be hard it must be really hard and then the issue with that is to be really honest john is that when you are the first the issue it's a double-edged sword because you're the first for so many people like take indians for example there's over a billion one in one out of every four people on the planet is south asian now they all have different experiences and different upbringings. And for me to just talk about my experience is never going to satisfy all of their experiences.

So when I'm the only it also in a way makes people a little bitter. You're the only well, why do you keep talking about your parents? I didn't have that experience with my parents. Why are you talking about being a woman? We're over that. Like, talk about my male Indian experience. It's like you cannot satisfy all of the ways people want to be proud of you. And so it's a really tough place to be.

You came out right before the show was announced. Like that has to be difficult under any circumstances for any person. What was it like coming out as someone who was already a very prominent public figure? I imagine that must have added to the challenge. Yeah, I think of all things that made that difficult, that was at the top of the list, being in the public eye. Obviously, I was already going through all

of the normal elements of coming out. I'm scared. What are my parents going to think? What are my friends going to think? Like, how do I navigate this new part of myself? But then on top of that, to be like, oh, I won't just come out to a small group of people. I will have to come out to the world. Coming out to the world is a different thing. And then knowing I'm already in the spotlight because this late night show, I went back

and forth for months. You know, I came out to people in my life in September and then it took me months and months and months to do that tweet because I kept going back and forth thinking, do I even want to do this? But the decision I, I decided to do it for several reasons. One, because it was eating away at me and I was like mentally not in a good place because I had this, what felt like a secret. Two was I thought if the spotlight is on me, let me show people, especially South Asians, a different way of coming out. Someone who is celebrating who they are.

Someone who is actually saying, hey, I know you're all looking at me and I'm going to take this opportunity to say this thing about me and say it with pride. And that was really important for me. But it was so scary. In fact, one of the most nauseating moments of my entire life was waking up the next morning, opening my phone, opening Twitter. And it was the number one trend. You're like, oh, my sexuality is trending on twitter and it was the number one trend uh my sexuality is trending it was the number one trend it was with the banner and everything and i like i can't even explain what that felt like something so personal to me being and then people giving their opinions on it and what they thought and it just felt gross to be honest i imagine so i mean you have you have all this pressure on. You have all these firsts that are weighing in your mind.

Like, what was the adjustment like going from YouTube to late night? Very different audiences, like we were saying before, like very different gatekeepers. I feel like YouTube is probably a platform where you feel like there are very few rules and it's very and you're free to do what you want and it's open. And then you go to like late night, which is sort of one of the clubbiest institutions of all time. Like how was that transition? It's literally going from one end of the spectrum to the exact opposite end of it for sure. And that was a big adjustment. I walked onto set the first day and I won't lie, I didn't know what half the people did. People came up to me and was like, I'm the script, this and this person. I'm like, what,

what is your job? What do you do? Like there's a lot of people in production, isn't there? The first season, this was pre COVID. There was like a hundred people on set. I'm like, what do you all do? Like, I'm so confused where all this money is going and the budget, you know, if you talk to someone who does youtube you talk about a budget that's millions it's in the low millions but it's still millions i was like oh this is an infinite amount of money and then you quickly realize no this money is actually nothing because you pay so many people there's so many regulations everything costs an absurd amount of money and so for me the adjustment was just learning learning learning this new machine, what everyone did,

what I could and couldn't do. The first time I ever got standards and practice notes, I was like, I can't say what? Yeah. Want me to talk slower? I should, I got notes like use your hands less. I was like, what? Like, these are all the things that made me so special on YouTube. And I, and I got into this, this zone where I started to just second guess everything

I did, you know, like, oh, I need to now adjust. You know, I started season one being like, I'm going to break the mold. And the reality is that the mold was intimidating and I kind of started to fit it. You know, I had the desk. I went out there. I did the monologue. I didn't want to be like every other late night show, but the system was kind of forcing me to be. The way the acts have to be broken down, what the budget allowed for.

The fact that my show was after Jimmy and Seth and what the audience would expect. It was really hard to actually break the mold. And we also just didn't have the resources to break the mold. So that was a tough position for me to be in, to be like, I have all these great ideas. I want this to be great, but there's just so many hurdles to make it great. How did the system sort of forcing you into that mold manifest itself on a day-to-day basis? Was it like notes that you were receiving? Was it just like so gradual that one day you're like, oh, this is sort of what everyone else is doing. How did I get here? Yeah. So I'll give you a prime example. Like a lot of my creative ideas are what would have

broken the mold. The best part of the show was a show part you didn't even see on the show. I would go out before the show even started. I would talk to the audience. I would improv a little with them and it would be hilarious and everybody having a great time. We could never capture it because we didn't have enough cameras and we couldn't turn around and shoot the audience. small things like that, or even the sketches I wanted to shoot because of the way late night goes is a lot of talent has, I think I used to be scared to say this, but I'll say it now because I feel safe now. I feel safe with you, John, but a lot of talent, they have certain agreements with late night hosts. Hey, we'll give you this exclusive spot with this person. If you don't do another late night show. Now, if you're the new kid on the block and your show's at one 30, it's really hard to book talent. If they're already promised to another show that's on a more prime spot. So booking talent was really, really tough. Our studio was so small, the acoustics are really bad.

So there was a lot of things we couldn't execute musically, which made it really hard. We couldn't afford musical guests, so we couldn't have performances on the show. And because of the resources we had, I had to shoot in the first season, 96 episodes in three months. So usually a late night host will shoot one episode a day. And on Thursdays, they'll shoot two, but I was shooting about two to three a day. And so what that meant was it was brutal. But what that meant was, you know, I think the magic of late night is that you can't wait to see what your favorite late night host is going to think about the new cycle. What are they going to think about the new vice president? What are they going to think about this hot story? But when you bank that many episodes, none of my shows were timely.

And of course there was a global pandemic. And so my show was the only show that was not addressing the pandemic at all. I was talking about making out and parties and traveling and I had a live audience. And it's because that was shot months and months in advance. So it was not set up to win because we didn't have the resources. Do you also think that did NBC like fully understand that if they are going to bring in a host who, you know, is historic, is breaking all these barriers, that it's not enough to just hire that person and say, good luck, but you've got to allow them the freedom to sort of do what makes you different and special and why they hired you in the first place. Like, do you think they fully understood that? Yeah, listen, I got to give a shout out to NBC because in my heart,

I do think they wanted to do something groundbreaking. I do think they wanted to champion a new voice. And the creative notes in the first season, maybe a little bit, but the second season when I actually learned how to have these conversations and I pushed back and they were really cool. They let me be me in the second season. My monologues were rant style. I wanted to be goofy. They let me be my creative self. However however what i don't think they understood and to be fair what i don't think anyone in network television understands not just nbc i don't think they understand that to champion a new voice that requires resources it's not just letting them be who they are how could they possibly be on par with other shows if they have a fraction

of the resources especially following jimmy and seth so it's things like i need the budget to be able to make the show timely i need the budget to be able to have enough of a crew and yes i said there's a hundred people but then our social media team was one person oh that's tough so like that was also tough for me to talk about for me to- Those were for a YouTube person. Exactly. So it's like they, network television needs to understand that you can't just give someone a seat at the table. You have to give them a strong seat that is just as good as everyone else's seat.

That's what made it tough. It's the entire system and how it's set up and how the budget was made based on the 1.30 AM time slot. No, the budget should have been made on the fact that this was a new voice you were trying to champion. That makes a lot of sense. So A Little Late ends in 2021. It's the middle of the pandemic. And you have this moment where you realize

you haven't been happy for a while, which leads to this wonderful book you've written that I do want to get to in a minute. But can you talk about how and when you came to this realization that you were a little lost? So I think towards the end of the late night show, season two, and then actually that was during the pandemic. So it was the ending of late night and also the pandemic happening hand in hand. I was a little lost because I thought, hey, this is supposed to be something that should have been kind of like a dream job.

You know, you get to go to set every day. You get to create stuff. You get to be in entertainment should have been kind of like a dream job. You know, you get to go to set every day, you get to create stuff, you get to be in entertainment. But I wasn't. And I went into this funk where I thought, is everything I've ever wanted just a lie? And I have concluded that no, that's not true. I actually think what it is, is that I don't actually know what I wanted. I just told you an entire story about I wasn't passionate about doing late night, but I said yes, anyways. That in itself, the writing is on the wall. And I do that multiple times. I think we all do that. We do the things that we know are not actually our passions because we think we have to, we have to earn our stripes. And to a certain extent, that is true. You know, in the beginning of my career, yes, I did a bunch of

stuff I wasn't passionate about. I did a bunch of gigs I didn't get paid for. And I did that with the hope that eventually I could earn my stripes and I could call the shots. I could do what I really cared about. The issue is when you do that for so many years, you forget that goal and you get caught up in the race and you just live the race for the rest of your life. The rest of your life, you'll keep doing things. You'll keep saying yes, forgetting that you ever wanted to be in a place where you could actually do things you were passionate about. I realized that in the pandemic when everything else went away. And in addition, you know, when my travels went away and the events

went away and the gigs went away and work went away, John, it wasn't just that I was bored. It was literally like, I felt I had no value. I was like, oh, I actually have no purpose. I'm not even a human being if I don't do these things. And I hated that. I hated that I associated every part of me with other things, whether it was relationships or work or accolades. And I thought that's really dangerous because in an industry where literally anything can happen and in a universe where anything can happen, I don't want my entire belief system to be teetering depending on what's happening in my day. And so I decided to do the work to build a strong foundation and decide who I really am, what my values are and where I want to go that was not dependent on things like work and relationships and what other people thought of me. And so I decided to write my new book, which is called Be a Triangle. It's very powerful hearing you say that. I had a similar feeling during the pandemic. It's very powerful hearing you say that. Like I had a similar feeling during the pandemic. It's one of the reasons I did this show. And the reason I called it Offline and I'm focused on this is because I got the sense that some of that feeling was the sort of the dopamine rush you get from being online

all the time, the engagement, the likes, the reach, whatever it is, whatever the platform is, when that goes away, or when it when all you have is just being online at home by yourself, and you don't have the in person physical interaction with other people, you do start feeling a little bit lost, spiritually lost, lost in general. And you know, we're talking about how as a creator on YouTube, like there's both a need to keep getting more views and subscribers as well as that dopamine rush that comes from the growth. To what extent did that factor into your sort of reassessment about what makes you truly happy? I think a lot. Listen, I believe all in the chemical balance.

I learned this actually pre-pandemic when I used to do a lot of meet and greets during tour, I'd always tell people that for some reason, after I meet a thousand people and it's the best day of my life, when I go back into my hotel room, I'm the saddest I've ever been. And because that chemical balance is a real thing. You're on a super, super, super high, and then your levels drop off. And now you're alone in a hotel room and you're like, oh my goodness. Pandemic was a similar experience. And social media is also a similar experience. But even aside from that, aside from the chemical imbalance and all the fun science-y stuff, it's more so just a question of honestly how we view ourselves. Because I write about in my book that any other problem in life, I know how to tackle. In school,

I learned how to tackle things. In late school, I learned how to tackle things. In late night, I knew how to tackle things. When I have to ever reflect on like, hey, why are you sad? Why can't you figure out this problem? Why do you value things this way? I'm lost. I don't know how to think about life in that way. I don't know how to figure out things related to my happiness in that way.

And I don't like that. I don't like that. And I think it's because as kids, we were never encouraged to do that work. And I think't like that. I don't like that. And I think it's because as kids, we were never encouraged to do that work. And I think more so that's what it is for me. It's that I never had the mental health talk as a kid in school. We were never taught the importance of like mindfulness or just even, you know, we read so many books about other people's heartache and other people's triumphs. We never thought about ourselves that way. And so I think more than anything, it's that it's actually doing the work like you would do the work on anything else, but with yourself.

And, and so that's what I did while writing the book. It was really figuring out what I want my foundation to be and how I want to view life. Well, and I love that you write so much in Be A Triangle about the relationship you have with yourself. At one point you write, there's value in being present with yourself throughout the day. And one reason that we're constantly checking our phones is because you said it can be uncomfortable to be alone with your thoughts, but is that the kind of relationship you want to have with yourself? My answer to that is no, but I have never figured out how to fix that, how to fix being alone with your thoughts and not having that give you more anxiety. That's

like the, you're in bed, you put the phone down, you're trying to go to sleep and your mind is just racing with thoughts. And you're like, I got to scroll through Twitter. That's going to make me feel better or watch something on TV. Like how did you get more comfortable being alone with your thoughts? I love that you brought that up because when I talk about putting my phone away, or even when I talk about meditation, the things people often say to me are, well, then I don't know how to meditate because I have a million thoughts going through my mind. And my response to that is who says that's wrong. So I have embraced the fact that I have so many thoughts going through my mind. Sometimes when I meditate, I can't actually turn off and have all these thoughts.

And instead of being upset at myself about that, I say, oh, then maybe these are thoughts you actually need to work through. So let's actually go through the thoughts in your mind. Why are you thinking that? So I think it's a little bit about giving yourself grace as a human. It's okay if you have those thoughts through your mind, it's actually better to look those thoughts in the face and allow yourself to have them than to bury them deep down by scrolling through Twitter is my opinion. So I think just give yourself the grace and know that there's no right way to meditate. There's no right way to put your phone away. However you are doing it and whatever is going through your mind is okay. And you're allowed to have that experience.

What made you finally sort of delete all your social media apps from your phone? And how hard was it to quit? So during the pandemic, I did go through a period where for about six months, I deleted social media. Right now, I do have Instagram on my phone. I did reinstall it because I felt like I was at a good headspace. Twitter will never be back on my phone. I hate Twitter.

That's the worst one. Twitter is the devil. But during the pandemic, yes, I did delete social media. And it was tough because I actually had like Phantom phone. I would try to keep opening social media on my phone. I was like, it's not there. It's not there. And then I would try to find a replacement app.

Like for like a couple of weeks, I was like, okay, I'm just going to scroll the weather app. The weather is going to tell me something. I'm going to go sunshine where we got rain, what we got here. I had to replace with something. And it took me a few weeks to get out of that habit, but honestly deleting social media. And I'm not trying to like come at this, like some sort of, I'm off on a high horse. I don't need people's validation. More than anything, it allowed me to just remove noise. I didn't realize how much noise I let into my day just by scrolling. I mean, sure. Social media is how we stay connected. It's how we learn about what's happening in the world. It's how we learn things. Great. But most of social media for most of us is just noise. Oh, who's getting canceled? What are they saying about this person? I don't even know.

Oh, there's two strangers fighting. Let me read all 50 comments about this fight, even though it doesn't impact my life. Like, why that noise? We only have so much energy in our day, and we're giving it away to just things that do not matter. And I think the greatest anecdote I have about this is during the Black Lives Matter protest, the Black Lives Matter protest during the pandemic, I remember the internet was particularly heated during that time. It was people arguing back and forth and it seemed so helpless and no one was getting along and no one was hearing the importance of the message. And so I deleted social media because it was way too

heavy on me. And I went to a protest in person. And what I saw was actually beautiful. I saw people getting along. I saw people giving out snacks and water. I saw people from't cancel people instantly. They actually give people a benefit of the doubt. They champion each other. They allow people to make mistakes. Social media doesn't do that. So it's just to remember that social media is not real life. It is not everything the world is. It is a small fraction of how we use ourselves. It's funny you mentioned that. I had a similar experience. The first time I did was, it was the first anniversary of the Women's March, and I was here in LA and I went down to join the march. I was by myself. Yeah, you were. We love a feminist. I was just all by myself. But I was down there and I was looking at my phone and there was no service for too many people or I was in some dead zone or whatever. And so I just put the phone away for once and

just enjoyed the crowd and looked around and felt this like very inspired feeling that I'd never feel if I was just looking at videos of the march on social media. Because inevitably someone would say something fucking stupid and annoying. Yeah, absolutely. And ruin your focus and ruin the feeling. And if you're just there present, it's just a totally different experience. It is. And you know, more than anything, if I'm going to get real vulnerable, which I am going to, a big part of what was really tough for me on social media was people can be really mean. And, you know, people would say things to me. And I think people

expect me to have tough, tough and thick skin, but I, but I'm still human. Famous people are still human. They still have feelings and emotions and i had a really tough time with people who had never met me telling me who i am because i would believe them i believed people who told me who i was that would never meet me oh i am bad i'm not funny i am ugly i'm all these things i must be these things millions of people are saying these things about me and the reason i reinstalled instagram now is because I've done the work to not give them the permission to tell me like I genuinely now for the first time ever actually three days ago I was on Instagram live and someone just for no reason was like f off and I was like oh this actually

doesn't bother me and it's because what I write about in my book is that the foundation of my life is four things it's a relationship myself, a relationship to the greater universe, understanding distraction and implementing design. Someone who's never met me telling me who I am doesn't fall in any of those categories. I've taken the value away from that person and I've actually placed the value into me knowing who I am more. From reading your book, I remember the story you told that when you came out to your parents and when you look back at that for a while you thought that they didn't give you the reaction that you wanted and then after a couple years you said you sort of said well they grew up in different circumstances they had different backgrounds they were coming from a different

place and so that and it's just sort of it's like a microcosm of how we kind of act with people online, people who might be mean to us. And you just, if you start thinking to yourself, okay, what is that person going through? Let me put myself in that person's shoes, the different contexts they may be coming at. Maybe they had a bad day when they lashed out. It puts you in a better place and gives you a little bit more peace, which is interesting. Yeah, absolutely. I think another way I talk about this is just by talking about context, you know, is giving people context. Which the internet does not do. Exactly. Which I was going to say, social media, the reason you can't have really

great conversations, like really, really great conversations because social media lacks two things. It lacks context and it lacks accountability. Someone can take a sentence of what you say, completely misconstrue it, and then tell you and be mad at you. And then they can disappear and there's no accountability. So it's hard to have a conversation. You can't do that in person. I think in person, we should give each other context. I even think online, we should give each other context, but I'm trying to be real here. It's just context. It's knowing that, you know, I have this, I have this mantra that is, I am you and you are me and we're in different circumstances. And that is that I could sit here and tell you that if I was in your position, I would act differently. But the reality is I might

not, I might act even worse because you have context and you deserve context. You deserve your lived experiences worthy. And yes, me coming out to my parents, it was so easy for me to be like disappointed and say, you didn't say these. They were in hindsight, they were super supportive. They didn't say the exact sentences I wanted them to say. You know, they didn't instantly throw me a pride party. And because of that, I was disappointed. But that's unfair because context. They didn't grow up with Lady Gaga bops

like I did. They didn't grow up with shows that have queer characters. They didn't know about any of this. So now I'm expecting them to instantly have this very steep curve of education within the span of what, a 20 minute conversation? That's not fair. And I think everyone deserves to have context, myself included. And so that's why I give myself more grace when someone says something to me that otherwise would have hurt my feelings. I now think, no, I actually am a human being who is actually trying my best. And I know who I am. And that is my context.

And I deserve to live in that context. Yeah. You have this joke in the book about how giving people advice about getting their lives into shape when you haven't figured out how to do so yourself would be, quote, a facade of wisdom that I generally like to reserve for Instagram where it belongs. And very funny. It also made me wonder how you deal with the performative nature of a public life online, like which just requires you to be on all the time. So there's two things. One is that to prevent the burnout, I actually try to be as authentic as possible. So if I'm in a fabulous outfit, you'll read my caption. It'll say, I think I'm

supposed to post about how this was effortless, but actually my Spanx really hurt. This pose hurt, these heels hurt, and I don't know how to do this. So I'll actually just try to say what I feel because that for me is less exhausting. And I think it's more relatable. So from the get-go, I really tried to perform very little. Having said that, of course, there is still some performative nature of like some of my pictures and some of my posts of my life looking more fabulous than it probably is. I think to reconcile that in my mind, I have, again, it goes back to value. I just see that for what it is. I don't see those pictures as those pictures don't define me. That is not now who I am. I recognize that as, Hey, I have a job. Part of my job is social media, and this is part of my job now. And I think those

boundaries are really important to have. Previously, I might've felt like, Hey, you can't do that. No, you need to be completely vulnerable and honest with your audience always. And you need to be, no, I don't need to be anything. What I need to be is healthy. And so I'm going to draw that boundary to say, hey, I might do this sometimes, but in my brain, I know exactly what it is before I never had those boundaries. I loved how you talk about distractions and how you now frame a lot of challenges as distractions. And particularly when you were writing about how, you know, you could wake up and feel happy and grateful and fulfilled. And then it's like a bad email from work, a bad comment on social media.

You know, you hit traffic, something, you're hungry. And then suddenly you're like, oh, life sucks. And you're like, how did I go from the day had so much promise. But thinking about all of those things as distractions that you try to push aside actually helps. How do you sort of get the distractions out of your life? Well, John, you really read my book. I did. No, I was a fantastic book. I'm really so grateful. Thank you.

I love it. You're going deep. That was like word for word, almost the exact anecdote. Thank you. Well, let me tweak one thing you said. I don't think you should push distractions aside. I think about distractions like this. So I'm not thinking about them in the conventional sense of like a dog barking or like an annoying neighbor or something. I define distractions as the things that take us away from the person we want to be and from the places that we know serve us. So I know being grateful serves me. It allows me to be happy. It allows me to be grounded. And it just generally feels nice to be grateful. So if grateful is where I want to be, and then something

happens that takes me away from that feeling, I call that a distraction from where I want to be. Having said that, I don't ignore it because that distraction is valid. Pain is valid. Frustration is valid. All of those things are valid. So what I'm saying is that go experience that. Be upset. Go through those emotions. Be jealous. Do whatever you need to do. But by naming it a distraction, you at least have the mindset to say, once I'm done there, I'm going to go back to the place that serves me, which is gratitude. And the reason thinking about it that way has helped me is because I used to be the person where I would live in that space. I would live in the space that was like, my life sucks. Work sucks. Work always sucks. Every part of my job sucks. And I would never even think to come back to distraction. When you think about, hey, I live in the land of distraction. I might have to detour to go over here and be sad for a second, but I'm going to go right back to the land of gratitude. That helps you understand where you want to return to. Yeah, that's a nice thought. You said that writing this book changed your life. How do you think that change will show up in your career and what you choose to do from here?

Absolutely. Well, in that answer, let me explain a little bit about why it's called Be A Triangle, because people might be like, what the hell is this about? Including my publishers that were like, what now? So when I knew that I needed to have a strong foundation, I concluded that a foundation is what I'm lacking at its core. I started Googling strong foundation, strong, strong. And I discovered that the triangle is structurally the strongest shape because of its strong foundation. That's why you have the Giza pyramids. That's why a lot of diagrams, a lot of buildings are triangles because structurally the strongest shape. Also, if you think about it visually, when you add to any other shape,

they change. When you add to a square, it becomes a rectangle. When you add to a circle, it becomes an oval. When you add to a triangle, it stays a triangle. It just is building upon itself. And I thought that would be a great way to build my life where I have a strong foundation and that's not going to change. But everything else that happens in my life can build upon this strong foundation. And the reason that was so important is because previously in my life, whatever happened in my day, it would really change who I was to my core. If I was having a great day and I won an award, I thought, oh, I'm a competent, great person. I'm on the right track. These are my values. This is who I am. And the very next day, if I failed at something,

everything about me would change. Oh, now life sucks. Now I don't have these same values. Now I'm not grateful. I think that's a really sad way to live life. I don't want who I am at my core to fluctuate based on what is happening in my life because life is unpredictable. I'm in an industry that's unpredictable and I deserve better than that. So how this has changed my life is that I truly believe no matter what happens from this point on career wise, relationship wise, I know I can return home mentally to a set of values, principles, and a foundation that will not be harmed. I will still have the relationship to myself. I will still have a relationship to the universe.

I will still be able to think of distractions in that way. And I will still be able to design the life I want to myself. I will still have a relationship to the universe. I will still be able to think distractions in that way. And I will still be able to design the life I want to design. None of those things are impacted by what's happening in my day. And I think that's a really nice place to have in your mind. Yeah. It also has the benefit of, you know, you, you can only control so much, uh, beyond your own reaction to the world around you that you could control. You can control how you respond to that, but you can't necessarily control the good or bad things that are going to happen in life. I feel like I've slowly come to learn that as I get older,

but it's an important thing to know. Yeah, it's almost like, you know, a home, a physical home feels safe. At the end of a long day, you go, I'm going to go home. I'm going to take off my pants. I'm going to sit on the couch. I'm going to feel safe there.

This book is about building that place mentally. Where's that safe place in your mind where no matter what happened in your day, in your mind, you can go, you know what? I'm going to my safe place, a place where I know what's up and I can go back to who I am. And it's all very simple things. This is not about adding 15 new routines to your day. It's about reorganizing what's already in your mind. Yeah. Last question I ask ask all our guests what's your favorite way to unplug and how often do you get to do it oh i'm this might this is kind of a boring answer though do i need to give you a no it can be as boring look boring is nice too i'll give you a i'll give you a boring answer than a nerdy answer i love movies movies. Every night I try to

watch a movie. I will put my phone away. I will watch a movie. I will dive into another world. So movies definitely. But I will also say, this is where I'm going to become a crazy lady. I love plants. I love plants. I'm a plant lady. And one way that I turn off is I spend time with my plants. I water my plants. I prune my plants. I dust my plants. And I'll tell you why it's yes, because I'm crazy, but also because in a world where so much seems overwhelming and impossible and tasks are daunting, plants are actually something that you can nurture and you kind of almost can control. Hey, I know all I have to do today is water this plant. And if I water this

plant, this plant will thrive. And then I would have done that thing. And it's kind of like a beautiful way of showing that no, you can actually nurture yourself and something else amongst the chaos. So I'm a crazy plant lady. I have never in my life been able to keep a plant alive. And you can just see where the plants used to be in my homes and then they just become over the years and then they just become fake plants i'm gonna give you two i'm gonna give you four words actually okay the first one is zz plant i don't know if that's four words or two and snake plant a zz plant and snake plant are two different types of plant, virtually impossible to kill. Oh, that's what I need.

They thrive in any home. Even the laziest, most useless people, John, can make those two plants thrive. I'm glad we finally got a plant answer from someone. There have been a lot of guests, more than I would have thought, who say birds. They're big birds people. So it's not the nerdiest thing I've heard either

by the way. Yeah, see, I'm not that nerdy. nerdy bird that's a hella nerdy i'm at least cool enough to say plants i would like to say on the totem pole plants is is above bird people i'll take it i'll take it but yes those two plants are super easy and yes otherwise if you get a complicated plant yes you will kill it and you will feel like trash so don't do that to yourself dizzy plant and um snake plant okay i'm gonna do it. Lily Singh, thank you so much for joining Offline. This was fantastic. Thank you so much. What a joy. Offline is a Crooked Media production.

It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. It's produced by Austin Fisher. Andrew Chadwick is our audio editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis, sound engineer of the show. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Michael Martinez, Andy Gardner-Bernstein, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Sandy Gerard for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, and Amelia Montooth, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.